Sunday, June 28, 2015

Why We Get Words Wrong, Part 4: Regionalisms

This fourth of a ten-part series on why we get words wrong looks at cultural differences. 

With all due respect to my family and friends across the Atlantic, the deleted words in the image represent the British spelling and the rewrites the American spelling. Regionalisms extend far beyond these examples (e.g., or/our and ize/ise word endings), but we should not consider such preferences as mistakes. Rather, we should just know for which audience we are writing.


Choose the preferred regional spelling on your word processor, but more than anything else, read material from both sides of the Atlantic to know the differences.